WORK has started on an ambitious #3.5million housing regeneration scheme in the Foleshill area of Coventry where homeowners and tenants will be helped to improve the appearance of local streets.

Midland-based Focus Housing is the moving force behind the new Housing Regeneration Company which will spend the next three years on what will be a national pilot scheme.

Yesterday, builders being trained by employment agency CovWise moved in to begin sanding down windows and repairing guttering in Princess Street.

The woman in charge of the whole operation will be Focus Home Options manager Liz Convey who said: "Most of our funding has come from the Housing Corporation, Coventry City Council and other housing associations active in this area.

"We all recognise that it can be much harder for owner-occupiers to recognise problems like rising damp or dry rot, particularly if they are elderly or disabled.

"In other cases home-owners often don't know what work needs to be done and there is a real fear of cowboy builders."

Princess Street resident Kantilal Patel, aged 52, who has lived in Foleshill for the past 30 years, said: "I am doing up my own property a bit at a time. Now these workers are going down the whole street is should be much better."

But Rattan Chand, aged 76, who has lived in various local streets over the past 41 years, said: "They are starting on the fronts of these properties which don't look all that bad. I'm more worried about the backs which are a real mess."

Richard Spencer, a technical officer who has been seconded to the scheme by the city council, said the 120 houses in Princess Street had a high number of owner-occupiers and had been chosen as an example of what could be achieved in a relatively short space of time.

He will be based at Focus offices at 396 Foleshill Road to offer advice on home repairs to other local residents and help access home improvement grants.